Team Name

Your team name defines your race team just as a name does for any business. As you've probably noticed, most team names include Racing, Motorsports or Team as part of the name. Whatever you choose, just try to thing of something creative that fits your team's personality. Many teams use the owner's or driver's name as part of the name. For example, who hasn't heard of Roush Racing? Or you can also create a name that might portray your team's unique mission. One of my favorites is MotorKidSports - a non-profit race team with a focus on introducing young kids to the world of motorsports.

Regardless of what you come up with, remember who your audience is (potential sponsors) and make sure you like it also. Even if you have a simple name such as Joe Smith Racing, you can add some uniqueness to it by attaching a slogan. Fed Ex - The World On Time is a great example. One for a race team might be, Joe Smith Racing - Motorsports Marketing For Your Business. Again, try to come up with something that is unique and creative and will show a potential sponsor that you are a professional business and not just a race team looking for a free ride.

Color Coordination

If you are the type that dresses up to only realize later that you have on a brown sock and a black sock, you may want to defer the task of choosing your team colors and look to someone else. From business cards, team logo, proposal, letterhead, hero cards, team uniforms, race car and transporter, you want to have a consistent, sharp, color-coordinated look that shows the world that your race team is an ahead-of-the-pack, professional organization. None of this has to be fancy or expensive, just crisp, clean and professional.

Who do you think a sponsor would prefer representing their business - a sharp-looking race team as described above or one that looks like they just crawled out from under the shade tree? And which one do you think would have a greater positive impression on the race fans?

So are you short on creativity and want a shortcut to this whole team image deal? Just take a look at the pros. Find a NASCAR, IRL or Formula 1 team whose color themes and look float your boat and incorporate them into your image. Now I am not suggesting you copy anything in specific, especially stuff like logo design, because you could find yourself in the middle of a copyright suit. But you might get some general ideas on color combinations that you could use - for example, the red and white of Ferrari's Formula 1 team.

Larger Than Life

Lastly, a few more things that round out that professional business image. You may not have a 250,000 sq.ft race facility, but a sponsor is probably never going to see it anyway. Even if your home garage is the race shop, here are some things you can do to still project a professional business image.

First, try to use an address on all your correspondence that at least looks like a business address if your home address doesn't appear so. If you already have a race shop, then great - use that. If not, do you know a business owner that you could make arrangements with to use their business address, or perhaps use the local track? It's just that 1234 Peaceful Meadows Lane would probably not be a positive contribution to your professional image when the prospective sponsor is reviewing your marketing materials. One last thing is whatever phone number you use, whether it is your home number or cell, make sure you record a sharp, business-like message in the event you miss an inbound call.

So, once again, the goal here in developing a professional race team image is to create a positive impression on the potential sponsor such that they see your team as an organization they would want to associate with. As such, you get funding to race, and your superior team image creates a greater impact on your sponsor's customers. Thus, you have increased the effectiveness of your marketing program leading to a happy, repeat sponsor for the next year.